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Begin the Beguine
"Begin the Beguine" is a popular song written by Cole Porter, composed during a 1935 cruise aboard the Franconia from Kalabahi to Fiji. The song was introduced in the Broadway musical Jubilee in October 1935, performed by June Knight at the Imperial Theatre.
The first successful recording was a swing version by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra in 1938. Julio Iglesias released a Spanish language version in 1981, which reached No. 1 on the U.K. chart, the first fully Spanish song to top that chart.[citation needed]
The beguine is a dance and music form, similar to a slow rhumba. In his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900–1950, musicologist and composer Alec Wilder, described "Begin the Beguine" as
a maverick, it is an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start to finish without the printed music ... about the sixtieth measure I find myself muttering another title, 'End the Beguine'.
At first, the song gained little popularity, perhaps because of its length and unconventional form. Josephine Baker danced to it in her return to the United States in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, but neither she nor the song was successful. Two years later, however, bandleader Artie Shaw recorded an arrangement of the song, an extended swing orchestra version, in collaboration with his arranger and orchestrator, Jerry Gray.
After signing a new recording contract with RCA Victor, Shaw chose "Begin the Beguine" to be the first of six tunes he would record with his new 14-piece band in his first recording session with RCA Victor. The session was held at the RCA Victor's "Studio 2" at 155 East 24th Street in New York City on July 24, 1938. Until then, Shaw's band had been having a tough time finding an identity and maintaining its existence without having had any popular hits of significance. His previous recording contract with Brunswick had lapsed at the end of 1937 without being renewed.
Because RCA Victor was pessimistic with the whole idea of recording the long tune that not listeners had difficulty remembering all the way through,[citation needed] it was released as the "B" side of the record "Indian Love Call", issued on the RCA Victor Bluebird label as catalog number B-7746. Shaw's persistence paid off when the song became a best-selling record in 1938, peaking at no. 3, skyrocketing Shaw and his band to fame and popularity. The recording became one of the most famous and popular of the entire Swing Era. Subsequent reissues by RCA Victor (catalog number 20-1551) and later releases on LP, tape and CD have kept the recording continuously available ever since its original release in 1938.
After Shaw introduced the song to dance halls, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the musical film Broadway Melody of 1940. The song is one of its musical numbers, first sung in dramatic style by mezzo-soprano Lois Hodnott on a tropical set, with Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire dancing in flamenco choreography. It is continued in the then contemporary jazz style by The Music Maids, with Powell and Astaire tap dancing to a big-band accompaniment.
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Begin the Beguine
"Begin the Beguine" is a popular song written by Cole Porter, composed during a 1935 cruise aboard the Franconia from Kalabahi to Fiji. The song was introduced in the Broadway musical Jubilee in October 1935, performed by June Knight at the Imperial Theatre.
The first successful recording was a swing version by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra in 1938. Julio Iglesias released a Spanish language version in 1981, which reached No. 1 on the U.K. chart, the first fully Spanish song to top that chart.[citation needed]
The beguine is a dance and music form, similar to a slow rhumba. In his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900–1950, musicologist and composer Alec Wilder, described "Begin the Beguine" as
a maverick, it is an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start to finish without the printed music ... about the sixtieth measure I find myself muttering another title, 'End the Beguine'.
At first, the song gained little popularity, perhaps because of its length and unconventional form. Josephine Baker danced to it in her return to the United States in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, but neither she nor the song was successful. Two years later, however, bandleader Artie Shaw recorded an arrangement of the song, an extended swing orchestra version, in collaboration with his arranger and orchestrator, Jerry Gray.
After signing a new recording contract with RCA Victor, Shaw chose "Begin the Beguine" to be the first of six tunes he would record with his new 14-piece band in his first recording session with RCA Victor. The session was held at the RCA Victor's "Studio 2" at 155 East 24th Street in New York City on July 24, 1938. Until then, Shaw's band had been having a tough time finding an identity and maintaining its existence without having had any popular hits of significance. His previous recording contract with Brunswick had lapsed at the end of 1937 without being renewed.
Because RCA Victor was pessimistic with the whole idea of recording the long tune that not listeners had difficulty remembering all the way through,[citation needed] it was released as the "B" side of the record "Indian Love Call", issued on the RCA Victor Bluebird label as catalog number B-7746. Shaw's persistence paid off when the song became a best-selling record in 1938, peaking at no. 3, skyrocketing Shaw and his band to fame and popularity. The recording became one of the most famous and popular of the entire Swing Era. Subsequent reissues by RCA Victor (catalog number 20-1551) and later releases on LP, tape and CD have kept the recording continuously available ever since its original release in 1938.
After Shaw introduced the song to dance halls, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the musical film Broadway Melody of 1940. The song is one of its musical numbers, first sung in dramatic style by mezzo-soprano Lois Hodnott on a tropical set, with Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire dancing in flamenco choreography. It is continued in the then contemporary jazz style by The Music Maids, with Powell and Astaire tap dancing to a big-band accompaniment.